adventures in pregnancy: mr. bean

Pregnancy has not been good for blogging.  I thought it might be.  I mean, I could whine and moan about the discomforts of pregnancy for NINE WHOLE MONTHS, right?  Ample material!  But...I also started to think of how SICK of my whining my friends and readers would get...and how sad my friends who struggle with conceiving might feel...and how STINKIN' TIRED I would be--so tired that even spending time whining and moaning seemed as though it might take too much energy.  I remember after my first trimester how I knew I was beginning to feel a bit better because the idea of watching a TV show downstairs on the couch was not so overwhelmingly exhausting (I'd been crashing in bed many hours a day).  LAYING ON THE COUCH was exhausting!  I mean, seriously!  Who can blog?

Not to mention that my blog definitely takes a food slant and just try writing about food when you can't stomach food.  Just, ew.  Gross.

I have barely cooked for my family in months.  Yep, that's right.  Me.  Flathead Mama.  Foodie.  More often than not, I find myself getting take-out or making a big salad for dinner.  Or a sandwich.  Mmmmmm....  Garlic has become persona non grata, which eliminates basically all of my recipes except dessert (although if I had found a way to add garlic to dessert, that probably would be part of my repertoire too!).  The first trimester, I couldn't cook or even stand cooking smells in the house.  I was craving chili one day and I made my husband cook it on the barbecue grill.  A few friends brought me casseroles.  BLESS THEM.  Because of them, my family could actually eat a few home-cooked meals!  And Sweet Peaks...Oh, God bless Sweet Peaks...their creamy, homemade ice cream was one of the few things that tasted really good.  Hence, my visits about three times a week.  No exaggeration.

And then...just as the afternoon sickness of nausea began to abate, I got a bad sinus infection that turned into a cough that made me throw up (which, strangely enough, I had never done from pregnancy nausea...in either pregnancy!).  And then I got food poisoning and had diarrhea for 4 days.  I was reminded of the line from The Devil Wears Prada: "I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight."  Haha.  In a way, it was good.  I had gained a little weight before getting pregnant.  This equaled me out a little bit.  Look on the positive side, I guess.  I wouldn't recommend 4 days of diarrhea as the best diet ever though.  Don't try this at home.

I got so depleted, I started having what almost felt like contractions.  So I had to get checked out at labor and delivery.  There was enough instability that they ordered an ultrasound.  But ultimately, baby was found to be staying put.  I went home, rested, stayed in bed (some more) while my husband did basically everything (some more).  BLESS HIM.  Without him, I probably couldn't have gotten well.  But I did.

The last week or so has been good.  We have done more fun things in the last week than in practically the whole pregnancy combined.  (Arts Festival!  Swimming at the lake!  Farmer's Market!  Thursday Fest in Kalispell!  Movie with the hubby!)  I'm tired and sore these days (and suffering from more allergies than usual), but functional.  And we found out this week that our baby Bean is a boy, so we have taken to calling him Mr. Bean.  I'm feeling him move more and more and so grateful to have gotten this far.  So grateful for the husband, daughter, family, and friends who have helped me through the hormones and sickness and difficulties of the first trimester (and part of the second).  So grateful to God for sustaining me even through an all-too-frequent negative attitude.  So grateful for the good and replenishing activities I've been able to do this week.

I hope with some renewed health and energy, I will be able to post a little more often.  But however things work out, know that I plan to be with this blog long-term.  Because, well, writing is awesome.  And so are my readers.

thankfulness in pregnancy

My head is tired but my heart is full.  God has been so good to me and to our family. 

I admit that I find it hard to feel thankful when the tears are a-comin' and the nausea is a-buildin'.  I forget my blessings and languish.  I become convinced that I will feel this way forever.  I gaze in dismay at the mounds of laundry, the scattered toys, the dirty floors.  I forget.

But God's mercies do not stop.  He brings me a husband who takes every chance he can to watch our daughter so that I can rest and yield to the solitude for which my soul and body are crying out.

He gifts me with the precious prayers of friends, who hold up my hands like Aaron and Hur holding the weary hands of Moses above the melee of the battle.

He blesses me with a daughter who (despite her bad days such as today) is really trying to be understanding of how tired and sick her mother feels.  Just last week, I was lying in bed with Burrito watching cartoons beside me.  She had not napped and now she wanted a snack!  I was near tears in exhaustion and self-pity.  Why couldn't everyone just leave me alone?  I got her graham crackers and snapped, "I wish someone would fix me a snack!"  Had I said that to my husband or to any man for that matter, they may have missed the request.  But my daughter is a woman in the making.  She gets hints!  (Hooray!)   "I can fix you a snack!" she said.  I requested yogurt and she went right down and got it for me.  And then I teared up again...she did care about me, the sweet girl!  It was just yogurt but it meant a lot more to me.

God has blessed me with friends who listen to me as I struggle through this first trimester, listen graciously, with compassion, and with the knowing that comes with having already walked this path.  Even my most negative feelings find a sympathetic ear.  These women understand.  They've been there.  And how precious to talk to them in flesh and blood.  Not on the computer.  Not on the phone.  They are with me.  They have time for me.  I am so grateful, for it has not always been this way.

God has blessed me with those who have offered to help.  Friends have offered to help me clean house, to watch Burrito, and one even brought me dinner (the first home-cooked meal I'd had in quite some time).  To ease my nausea, she cooked it at her house first so I didn't have to smell food cooking.  And that night the nausea began to abate.

God has blessed me so much.  I am grateful too that my friends have seen me when I was not such a basket case!  But nevertheless, they have loved me right where I am.  So has my husband.  So has my daughter.  I am blessed. 

why i'm so glad i told people earlier this time

In my first pregnancy, I had no idea what to expect.  At that time, I was in Christian ministry in a small town and was one of the most high profile people in the community.  Privacy was not readily available anyway and so this very personal experience of my first pregnancy was a secret I guarded and held close to the chest.  I waited until the end of the first trimester to tell most people.  I didn't know how my body would respond to pregnancy and was not ready to be public about something so personal.  I also closely guarded my ultimate birth plan to have a home birth, wanting to guard against negativity (since I knew I tend toward anxiety anyway).

In retrospect, I probably was right to hold those secrets close to the chest, but even so I am so glad and grateful to not be so controlling of the experience this time.  Heck, not only am I telling pretty much everyone I know, I'm also blogging about the ups and downs of this pregnancy.  I didn't wait until the end of the first trimester to tell, but only until 8 weeks in.

I have discovered that one of the most key times when a pregnant woman needs support is in her first trimester.  This is the most difficult part of pregnancy, complete with mono-like tiredness and debilitating nausea.  Hormones are high and tearfulness is common.  And yet, we so closely guard what we are going through from others.  It has been such a relief to open up and tell my friends and my church about what is going on.  No, I don't dump on everyone, but my closest friends and family know that I'm going through a pretty tough time right now.  We all know that "this too shall pass," but I also know that I need prayer, encouragement and offers of help right now.  I need to take a walk with a friend and pour out the good, the bad and the ugly.  I need to be able to write about what I am going through and process it in a way that carries me through.  I need my Bible study to be praying for me.  I need people with whom I can cry, even though I am not normally a crier.

Will all of this be worth it when the baby comes?  Of course it will!  Am I glad to be having this baby?  Of course I am (though the gladness is more intellectual right now)!  I feel for all of my friends who have struggled with infertility and pregnancy loss and mean no disrespect to their experiences.  Clearly, a child is a blessing from God.  But it also takes travail to bring a child into the world.  It takes suffering.  I feel tender, overwhelmed and in need of Christian community right now.

And so, Jesus shows me how He carries me when I cannot carry myself (which all of the time, but even more clear right now).  Jesus gives me grace when my house looks like a tornado hit it.  Jesus shows me love through my husband who is picking up so much of the slack at home.  Jesus is in a friend's listening ear.  He is the offer of help watching my daughter.  He is even in my absolute need to rest and be, instead of do.  I am not alone.  And this too shall pass.

be careful that you do not forget...

I got my fresh start in the Flathead Valley over a year ago now.  I moved here in late December of 2010, exhausted, depleted, disheartened, sad, and lonely.  Since then, so many wonderful things have happened.  I returned to my writing roots (which I had had almost no time to devote to during my time in ministry).  I started my blog.  I started doing some copywriting and copyediting.  I got to stay home with my daughter and enjoy making countless wonderful memories with her.  I made friends--wonderful, honest, authentic, welcoming, caring, Jesus-centered friends.  I had great opportunities to use my spiritual gift of teaching through MOPS and Bible studies at church.  I got to connect with members of my church who are just as excited about Jesus' mission on earth as I am and brainstorm ways to live that mission out.  I got to enjoy the beauty of this area--snow-covered mountains and tamaracks and sparkling lakes.  I felt myself coming alive again.  I started to heal from some hurts of the past.

But it's amazing how a person starts to get used to God's blessings.  I think that I do this with my husband as well.  I so easily forget how lonely I was as a single person, how I prayed on my knees with tears, asking God to send me a husband.  I so easily forget worrying that I would die alone.  I so easily forget wondering if I was destined to be single forever.  And now I have a tremendously wonderful husband, who consistently shows me God's love, who is compassionate and kind, who helps me in so many ways around the house, who listens to me without judgment, who understands me better than perhaps anyone...and I easily forget how that is not a normal thing.  That this is a given thing.  That this is a gift.  I so easily pass him by and think he gives me my due.  But in truth, he gives me much more than I deserve.  I pass him by so often like a woman who's gotten used to living by the Grand Canyon.

I get used to God's other blessings too.  God wants me to stop, pay attention, and remember what tremendous gifts He has given me in my life.  Rather than get annoyed with the ways my daughter gets in the way of my plans, God wants me to stop and contemplate the mystery that is an entire human being that one day was not and then one day was.  God wants me to be reverent and joyful and watch as He continues to fashion her, His masterpiece.  I am on the cusp of the flower unfolding.

I have my husband, my daughter, Montana, my friends.  There was a time when I did not have any of these things.  I am thankful.  I am thankful for what I have been given. 

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."--Deuteronomy 6:10-12 (NIV)

happy galentine's day!

Christopher and I are fans of the NBC comedy, Parks and Recreation.  In the sweet episode from last week, Leslie celebrates "Galentine's Day" (the day before Valentine's Day) by celebrating her female friends and attempting to find a love match for her best friend, Ann.

Well, I'm not going to try to find any of my single friends a husband; matchmaking has never been my forte!  But I do want to take this invented holiday to reflect with thankfulness on the wonderful gift of female friends in my life.

I'm afraid that for many of my single years, I didn't appreciate female friends as much as I should have.  My focus was so fully on finding a husband to love that I placed less value on female relationships.  Plus, I thought I had more in common with male friends.  How little I knew!

But the beginnings of marriage and motherhood have shown me that while a wonderful, loving husband is a gift of God, there are some parts of life that only a woman friend can understand--because your experience is her experience too!

Only a woman can understand the crazy ups and downs affecting our emotions and bodies each month.

Only a woman understands how physically connected we feel to our children, in such a way that we would kill or be killed if only to protect them

Only a woman understands the wonder of feeling a tiny baby growing within your womb.

Only a woman understands how draining it is to have birthed a new baby.

Only a woman understands the guilty feelings as she is pulled between work and home, always feeling she is letting someone down.

Only a woman understands postpartum depression.

Only a woman knows what it is like to feed another human being from her body.

Only a woman understands the anxiety of each stage of motherhood, as we struggle to figure out what is best for our children.

So....for all of my female friends who I am blessed to have in my life...thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  Thank you for your kind, loving words.  Thank you for your Facebook messages and emails when I need a word of encouragement or advice.  Thank you for your phone calls.  Thank you for cooking for me when I was torn in body and spirit from the pains of labor.  Thank you for making time for me.  Thank you for encouraging me in faith.  Thank you for being a sisterhood to me.

Happy Galentine's Day, ladies!  I love you!

self-care for moms

I think that one of the toughest challenges for us as Moms is make sure that we give ourselves good care.  We tend to put ourselves last on the list and then after we neglect ourselves over and over again, we eventually get to the point where we get so resentful of not having our needs met that we explode!  Well, at least that's how it works for me sometimes. 

There are some ways in which I'm great at self-care and some ways in which I seriously stink.  Have you ever heard the HALT acronym?  It tells us to never let ourselves get too "Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired."  Trouble will result when we allow that to happen.  I routinely let myself get in these states, however.  One of my biggest offenses is letting myself get too hungry.  This was particularly true when Burrito was a baby.  It seemed that I never got enough to eat or drink and I would get ravenously hungry and then I would start getting angry.  Sigh.  I'm trying to learn to remember to eat enough.  Unfortunately, now that I'm remembering and Burrito isn't nursing anymore, I find I am gaining a little bit of weight.  Not an insane amount, but still.  Now, I must remember not just to eat, but to eat more vegetables and fruit!

Here are the top 5 self-care practices that I find important to making sure my "cup" is filled.  Unless I am filled up, I find I don't have a lot to give out.

After you read my list, please share your list!  What are your top 5 self-care practices?

1. Reading the Bible.  My husband and I generally read the Bible at night together before going to bed.  We tend to read through whole books.  Right now, we are in the Gospel of Luke.  We read a small portion, discuss it and say our prayers.  I'm searching for a better way to do a personal time of Bible reading, however.  After all, we are pretty tired when we read the Word at night.  Still, I'm glad that we do.  I find it even more helpful to attend a regular Bible study in town.  I gather with some other moms who are in the same stage of life and there is free child care.  I get a lot out of this undistracted time of studying God's Word.

2. Sleep.  I think I've written before about my battles with insomnia.  Until I went through this trial a couple of years ago, I don't think I realized how precious sleep is.  I know I definitely appreciated it much more now.  I usually get around 8 hours of sleep at night.  And it feels good!

3. Community.  I find that I get a little weird when I'm not in community.  I need people around me, friends to talk with, to joke with, to share my heart with.  If I don't have people with whom I regularly share my life, people in the flesh, then I start getting really in-drawn and depressed.  But I feel most whole when I have people to talk to.

4. Eating.  Like, whole grains, protein, veggies and fruit.  It's so easy to forget to eat this stuff but it's amazing how some apples dipped in peanut butter or a piece of cheese will pick me up.  If I'm getting grouchy, I need to remind myself to eat something healthy. 

5. Doing things I love.  That means, reading for fun!  I have a huge list of books I hope to check out from the library all the time.  I love to read...especially dramatic plots and books that open my world up to understand things differently.  I love how reading makes me a better writer.  And so writing is also a very important part of self-care for me.  Writing is like my third arm.  It's been a part of me since I was a little girl and I am not whole without it.  And in the category of things I love is also the enjoyment of good movies and TV shows.  There's something very relaxing for me as an introvert in curling up on the couch and enjoying a favorite show.  It's great to have that down time when nothing is required of me. 

So, those are my 5.  What are yours?

free day at glacier national park!

This is a post where I gloat about the joy of living in close proximity to Glacier National Park.  See?

And this is a post where I brag about my great friends who are always DOING THINGS and inviting me to DO THINGS and including me even though I'm kind of a weakling and come in a two-pack with a toddler who tends to go at a molasses-like pace at times.

We have wonderful, outdoorsy people at our church.  Now, my usual experience of outdoorsy people is that they tend to make you feel bad about yourself (if you're bookish and sedentary like I am).  No, I've never hunted a deer or ridden a snow mobile or climbed a mountain.  When it comes to outdoorsy stuff, I'm limited by both my physical ability (I have a bum knee) and my lack of knowledge.  I have to be told things that are obvious to others.  In my experience, this has led to many folks just not taking me too seriously and going about their way.  It makes me feel excluded sometimes.  Left out.

But these Montana folks.  They really know how to welcome you into their world.  Or, at least my Montana folks do.  Whenever there's an outdoor experience, they put up with all my dumb questions .  They slow down if I need them to.  They explain things and don't assume I already know.  But they never make me feel like an idiot.  They make me feel invited in, included, and more knowledgeable after being with them than before.  I love my Montana people.

Today was "free day" at Glacier National Park.  It was an incredibly gorgeous day (after weeks of rain and grey skies).  We skipped rocks at Lake McDonald, walked down a trail to a waterfall.  We ate on a rocky beach by Lake McDonald Lodge.  All along the trail, I joked about being eaten by bears (an actual fear that had me worried all last night...I was convinced both I and my toddler would in fact be devoured by bears).  They put up with me. They laughed and smiled with me.  And because of that inclusion, Burrito and I were able to enjoy the wonders of God's creation, the breath-taking scenery.  The crash of the rapids and the waterfalls.  The warmth of the sun on our face.  The pleasure of good conversation on the trail.  Burrito was enamored with the picnic on the beach.  Eating sandwiches OUTSIDE?  AT A LAKE?  WITH FRIENDS?  Awesome! 

We love living in Montana, and it's not just because of the scenery.  It's because of the wonderful people we have met here and their welcoming hearts.

i marvel at their strength

Remember that feeling of hopefulness, as you stand with your friends on graduation day, on the brink of the future?  Remember how you are challenged to change the world and how it seems as if there are no obstacles in your way?  Remember?

I am in my 30s now and it’s hard to believe.  As I think of my friends and the struggles and the battles they have gone through in life…not just friends I graduated from college or seminary with, but the friends I have picked up all along the way.  I think of the innocence of when we first met, and the secrets we shared.  I think of the trials that were to come, and how we probably would have trembled if we had known those things.

I’m in my 30s and already I have seen friends lose babies, go through terrible illnesses, struggle in marriage, face tragedy.  I’ve seen single friends still walking alone, though they long to find a spouse.  I’ve seen friends go through heartbreak and joblessness.  I’ve seen friends go through persecution for their faith, and I’ve gone through that too.  I’ve seen the Church break my friends’ hearts, and mine too.  I’ve known the loneliness of a rural parish, the sadness when people disappoint you, the exhaustion of being a new parent with no support system.  I’ve suffered the loss of my father, a loss so huge I am still struggling to come to terms with it.

We’ve suffered.  In ways we have not expected.  In a time that was sooner than we expected.  We’ve made plans, only to see their total reversal. We’ve wondered where God is, in the midst of our struggles.

Our innocence has been lost.  We no longer believe we live in a perfect world where bad things don’t happen.  We know they do.

But in the midst of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, we’ve found a strength we didn’t know we had.  There is nothing like sitting and hearing someone’s story of profound suffering, complete with their honest human reactions in the midst of it…and yet seeing how the fire of this suffering is refining them, making them solid like iron.  We have been changed by our suffering. 

At times, we want to be called Mara, “bitterness.”  But instead, God is working to make us called Naomi, “my delight.”

We went out into the world full and came back empty…and then came back full again.

We found God working in surprising places…through the painful experiences of our lives.

We found the wonder of being alive, in the midst of a world where such suffering takes place.

We found the wonder of an inner strength, given by God.  I look at my friends and I marvel at them…even those who think they are nothing great, who struggle and worry about their sinful hearts.  I still marvel.  I see God’s grace in them as they put one foot in front of another.  As they fight for the good, even though the battle is long and hard and seems to yield few instant rewards.  I marvel at their faithfulness to God.  I marvel that they don’t curse God and die.  I marvel at what God is doing in them.  Slowly.  Imperceptively at first.  Like a seed germinating in the ground.  I wonder if they see God working in me like that too…